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February 22, 2006

Winter Olympic Backlash

Japan Today - I mean, "crisscross.com" - had a curious article yesterday about the Japan Olympic Committee being flooded with angry calls wondering why Japanese athletes were not winning more medals at the Torino Olympics. I'm not sure 70 telephone complaints in a nation of 127 million really necessitates a news story, but this army of J. Arthur Cranks is symptomatic of a slowly brewing backlash against the Winter Olympics. After all the hype and the special menu items at McDonald's, the Nipponese Athletes have yet to win a single medal. And to make matters worse, if Japan were somehow able to buy off Estonia's three Gold medals and Croatia's 1 Gold and 2 Silvers, they would still have less bling than long time rival South Korea.

The always sexy, always angry Weekly Playboy screams out in this week's edition: "The Torino Olympics are too boring!" blaming "un-transparent scoring standards, rules that keep changing, and representative athletes who fail to live up to expectations." The editors are livid and someone has to take the blame: "Those responsible, step forward!" (They also warn in the next headline that the recently expanded lower classes in Japan will become violent and take revenge on the rich.)

The Winter Olympics can be a fun romp, but there are so many obvious flaws that as soon as things turn sour, all the fundamental problems are conveniently "discovered" for incessant nitpicking: too many white people, too many obscure sports invented by white people, too much ice and snow. Maybe the marketers deserve blame for making this biannual congregation for international goodwill into an opportunity to sell limited-edition knick-knacks. And maybe the television stations should be slapped on the wrist for turning us all into jingoistic monsters re-obsessed with the 20th century notion of basing support on personal affiliations to nation-states.

But a "backlash" against the Winter Olympics can only exist when people fail to consider that the Games are essentially an interesting collection of ridiculous sports. What were the Weekly Playboy editors really expecting? Did the luging not live up to their own personal standards? Were the young girls of the women's curling team supposed to beat out the forty year-old married professionals from the European powerhouse nations? Were the female snowboarders not supposed to break into a self-written rap when asked about their medal chances by television reporters?

If Japan won a medal or two, would the proceedings still be so boring?

Posted by marxy at February 22, 2006 11:35 AM

Comments

Posted by: trevor at February 23, 2006 7:10 AM

Posted by: Marcus at February 24, 2006 4:57 PM